Everyday Gospel: A Daily Devotional Connecting Scripture to All of LifeSample

Redemption is where God’s anger with sin and his grace toward the sinner embrace.

It is so easy for us to minimize our sin. It’s so easy for us to be more concerned about or irritated by the sin of others than we are our own. It is so easy to argue for our own righteousness while being judgmental and condemning toward the sin of others. But if you minimize your sin, then you will no longer value, seek, or celebrate the forgiving, reconciling, transforming, and delivering grace of God. If you defend yourself in the face of conviction, you are defending yourself from the best gift that has ever or will ever be given: redeeming grace.

One particular passage powerfully depicts the sinfulness of sin. These are the words of a Creator who is grieved by what sin has done to his world and to the people he made in his own image.

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man, and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” (Gen. 6:5–7)

What a devastating explanation of the horrible nature of sin: “Every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Since the heart is the control center of one’s personhood, for every intention of the heart to be constantly evil meant that the control of sin over people’s lives was both total and inescapable. How bad is sin? It is an inescapable evil that lives in the heart of every person who has ever taken a breath. Stop now and permit yourself to mourn. Let yourself shudder at the power of the anger of God with sin, an anger so deep that he decides to wipe out humanity from the face of the earth. Today, remember how sinful sin is in the eyes of the one perfectly holy person—Jesus— who has ever existed.

It would be terribly sad if the biblical story ended here. The very first word that follows Genesis 6:7 is but. Judgment would not be the end of the story. God would not minimize sin. He would not turn his back on iniquity. Through Noah, he would extend his mercy and gather a covenant people, and through them, he would raise up a Redeemer.

In the story of Noah, the anger of God with sin and the mercy of God toward sinners embrace. Here we get a hint of the cross that is to come. It is the anger of God with sin that drives Jesus to the cross. It is the grace of God toward sinners that leads Jesus to the cross. On the cross of Jesus Christ God’s anger with sin and his grace toward sinners embrace, and still today that is the best of news.

For further study and encouragement: Luke 18:9–14